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Stephen Cooper (Scooperman)

Hi, a couple of games in and there's still a few things we still don't fully understand:

1) What are the leading player tokens for?

2) When on the Mordor track, can Shadow event cards still be played that allow for picking a hunt tile?

3) Can someone please explain or show me an example of how the hunt re-rolls work?

The rulebook states, "If, during the Hunt, the Ring-bearers are in a region that contains one or more of the following:- A Stronghold controlled by the Shawdow player- One or more Shadow Army units- One or more Nazgul"

But if the fellowship has moved say 1, but is not declared or revealed, how do you know where it is to know if they are in a region that contains one of the following?

Linked to this I have read elsewhere that one strategy is to following to Fellowship around with Nazgul. Is this specifically to try and get hunt re-rolls?

Any help on this last one in particular would be gratefully appreciated.

Hi, a couple of games in and there's still a few things we still don't fully understand:

1) What are the leading player tokens for?

For games with 3-4 players. The leading player must take the first action for that side, IIRC.

Quote:

2) When on the Mordor track, can Shadow event cards still be played that allow for picking a hunt tile?

Yes.

Quote:

3) Can someone please explain or show me an example of how the hunt re-rolls work?

The rulebook states, "If, during the Hunt, the Ring-bearers are in a region that contains one or more of the following:- A Stronghold controlled by the Shawdow player- One or more Shadow Army units- One or more Nazgul"

But if the fellowship has moved say 1, but is not declared or revealed, how do you know where it is to know if they are in a region that contains one of the following?

The fellowship's last known location is where their figure is. When the rules or cards refer to the fellowship's location, they really mean the fllowship's last known location.

So wherever their figure is, that is their location. Thematically it isn't, but so far as the rules are concerned it keeps them less verbose.

Quote:

Linked to this I have read elsewhere that one strategy is to following to Fellowship around with Nazgul. Is this specifically to try and get hunt re-rolls?

Yes it is. If there is a Nazgul in the region containing the Fellowship's figure, then they get a re-roll. Similarly for an Army unit.

1) Leading player tokens are for 3 and 4 player games, so you can ignore for 2 player.

2) Yes, because the fellowship is not in a region with a FP settlement. However, you cannot play event cards that require the fellowship to be at 1 or higher on the track because they are always at 0 in Mordor.

3) Regardless of where the fellowship is on the track, their location is determined by the figure. So if the fellowship figure is in Moria with an army of 10 Sauron units, but no Nazgul and they are at 3 on the track, the shadow player would get to re-roll up to 2 dice on the hunt roll.

Yes, the reason to follow the fellowship with a Nazgul is entirely for rerolls. Even better is to have 1 army unit with 1 Nazgul chase them, because then you get 2 rerolls.

On that final point, I actually had to use this strategy to a much greater extent than usual in our last game.

Usually I might sick Chief of the Ringwariths (from LOME) or a Nazgul on the Fellowship if I want to slow them down. But this time, they got 2 regions past Lorien in about 2 rounds, without even taking any corruption and meanwhile the Shadow were not able to mobilise due to lack of Muster dice (and spending what few I had on Factions probably didn't help!).

So I split up the armies I had in North Ithilien and Dol Guldur to spin a web of Army units across that region, plus 2 Nazgul and the Witch King on his Fell Beast plus army unit in the Fellowship's space.

My hope was that we would catch them and even if revealed I would still get multiple rerolls. If they declared then WK can follow them automatically.

Anyway, it worked! Managed to slow the fellowship down (because moving multiple times was more dangerous) as well as causing a steady corruption increase. They were over half way up the corruption track before entering Mordor and the Ring Bearer was corrupted as he tried to move to the Crack of Doom.

So a heavy corruption strategy can definitely change the game. I was also doing everything possible to dig the Character deck for the cards which add red tiles to the hunt pool; Black Captain was attacking regions just to draw a new character card, all Event dice were used to draw them as well. It worked, but barely.

That the Fellowship's region actually = the fellowship's last known location, that makes things a lot easier to understand. It's not intuitive as with a movement track of +1 or greater obviously while their last known location could still be their current location really their actual location is likely to be somewhere else.

I still don't exactly follow though re.:

Orion3T wrote:

So I split up the armies I had in North Ithilien and Dol Guldur to spin a web of Army units across that region, plus 2 Nazgul and the Witch King on his Fell Beast plus army unit in the Fellowship's space.

My hope was that we would catch them and even if revealed I would still get multiple rerolls. If they declared then WK can follow them automatically.

My understanding is that you already get the re-rolls because the 2 Nagul & WK & armies in their space.

So are the web of armies to try and quickly be where they are when they declare to gain further re-rolls, rather than possibly losing this chance by having to try and move there? That is, are you positioning units in the places where you anticipate them to declare/be revealed to try and secure future re-rolls?

So I split up the armies I had in North Ithilien and Dol Guldur to spin a web of Army units across that region, plus 2 Nazgul and the Witch King on his Fell Beast plus army unit in the Fellowship's space.

My hope was that we would catch them and even if revealed I would still get multiple rerolls. If they declared then WK can follow them automatically.

My understanding is that you already get the re-rolls because the 2 Nagul & WK & armies in their space.

So are the web of armies to try and quickly be where they are when they declare to gain further re-rolls, rather than possibly losing this chance by having to try and move there? That is, are you positioning units in the places where you anticipate them to declare/be revealed to try and secure future re-rolls?

You follow it pretty much right.

Usually, if they are at 1+ on the Fellowship Track, the FP can get away from a harassing army and Nazgul by declaring at the start of the round. They move their 1 space and leave the Nazgul behind. They can then immediately move (because they get first Action) and I get no rerolls.

So, if I waited until they move, they can Declare at the start of the round and immediately move again before I can reposition. By putting Army units in the next 2 possible spaces, and with the Witch-King (Chief Ringwraith) on their current space, he would follow automatically.

I might be forgetting some details (I think I had Nazgul there as well purely in case they were Revealed, because then the Chief Ringwraith does not follow automatically, so I was covering both possibilities and if they declared I would reposition the redundant Nazgul) but hopefully you get the general idea.

Usually, if they are at 1+ on the Fellowship Track, the FP can get away from a harassing army and Nazgul by declaring at the start of the round. They move their 1 space and leave the Nazgul behind. They can then immediately move (because they get first Action) and I get no rerolls.

So, if I waited until they move, they can Declare at the start of the round and immediately move again before I can reposition. By putting Army units in the next 2 possible spaces, and with the Witch-King (Chief Ringwraith) on their current space, he would follow automatically.

I might be forgetting some details (I think I had Nazgul there as well purely in case they were Revealed, because then the Chief Ringwraith does not follow automatically, so I was covering both possibilities and if they declared I would reposition the redundant Nazgul) but hopefully you get the general idea.

Why does the Witch-King automatically follow?

And so if you were to employ this strategy from the beginning it seems unless they were lucky ad able to move a number of times quickly it would force them to have to take a longer route due to the move and declare approach?

War of the Ring: Official FAQ Master! Webmaster of www.warofthering.eu Author of the War of the Ring Companion

- This is My Hour!

Jooles wrote:

Orion3T wrote:

Usually, if they are at 1+ on the Fellowship Track, the FP can get away from a harassing army and Nazgul by declaring at the start of the round. They move their 1 space and leave the Nazgul behind. They can then immediately move (because they get first Action) and I get no rerolls.

So, if I waited until they move, they can Declare at the start of the round and immediately move again before I can reposition. By putting Army units in the next 2 possible spaces, and with the Witch-King (Chief Ringwraith) on their current space, he would follow automatically.

I might be forgetting some details (I think I had Nazgul there as well purely in case they were Revealed, because then the Chief Ringwraith does not follow automatically, so I was covering both possibilities and if they declared I would reposition the redundant Nazgul) but hopefully you get the general idea.

Why does the Witch-King automatically follow?

And so if you were to employ this strategy from the beginning it seems unless they were lucky ad able to move a number of times quickly it would force them to have to take a longer route due to the move and declare approach?

He is using the version of the Witch-king that comes in the Lords of Middle-earth expansion.

War of the Ring: Official FAQ Master! Webmaster of www.warofthering.eu Author of the War of the Ring Companion

- This is My Hour!

Jooles wrote:

Veldrin wrote:

He is using the version of the Witch-king that comes in the Lords of Middle-earth expansion.

Oh, can't afford that at current prices. Will just have to wait for a re-release to follow the Hobbits around in style I guess!

New print run coming soon:

"The War of the Ring Second Edition base game and its first expansion, Lords of Middle-earth are presently sold out, but they are now being reprinted and will be available again in the second half of November."

"The War of the Ring Second Edition base game and its first expansion, Lords of Middle-earth are presently sold out, but they are now being reprinted and will be available again in the second half of November."

For those of us who have ordered the new Anniversary Release I don't suppose if you know if there's also plans to release collector's editions of the Lords and Warriors of Middle-earth with matching painted minis do you?

Usually, if they are at 1+ on the Fellowship Track, the FP can get away from a harassing army and Nazgul by declaring at the start of the round. They move their 1 space and leave the Nazgul behind. They can then immediately move (because they get first Action) and I get no rerolls.

So, if I waited until they move, they can Declare at the start of the round and immediately move again before I can reposition. By putting Army units in the next 2 possible spaces, and with the Witch-King (Chief Ringwraith) on their current space, he would follow automatically.

I might be forgetting some details (I think I had Nazgul there as well purely in case they were Revealed, because then the Chief Ringwraith does not follow automatically, so I was covering both possibilities and if they declared I would reposition the redundant Nazgul) but hopefully you get the general idea.

Why does the Witch-King automatically follow?

And so if you were to employ this strategy from the beginning it seems unless they were lucky ad able to move a number of times quickly it would force them to have to take a longer route due to the move and declare approach?

Yeah I'm using the Chief of the Ringwraiths version, which is helpful in a corruption strategy. He also lets you draw more Character cards if he's in the fellowship figure's region. You can do the same with a Nazgul but it's not as powerful, though of course you get the advantage of using the Black Captain in combats instead.

You cannot really pursue this from the very start because the fellowship starts in Rivendell, and you cannot move Nazgul or armies there without attacking it (which is hard). Trying to cover the regions they might go to from Rivendell would be both fruitless and costly in actions. You also cannot even bring the Chief Ringwraith into play until the Fellowship figure has left Rivendell (must be in a region not containing a FP ssettlement IIRC).

But once you have caught them and they are forced to reveal, depending where they are revealed you can start considering it. Of course there is a price to pay because it will use action dice which you would prefer to have used to make military progress.

I only pursued this strategy so relentlessly because I felt it was my only option. Let me see if I can be more specific:

- The fellowship were first revealed on their 5th move, in South Anduin Vale, with 0 corruption and Gandalf sacrificed. This was the first successful hunt - they had moved 4 times in round 1 because the FP had a Will of the West die, so they planned to sacrifice Gandalf but they got lucky on hunt rolls. They also had a Will of the West so were not bothered about sacrificing Gandalf.

- They then took 6 corruption in short order; first they drew a '3' on their next fellowship move, then I played a card allowing me to choose a random companion to be sacrificed or take the companion's level in corruption. I got lucky and picked Strider at random, so the FP chose to take 3 corruption.

- If memory serves this left the Fellowship on 6 corruption in Western Brown Lands, with Smeagol as the guide and most of the companions still in the Fellowship. Then the FP split off Strider, Legolas, Gimli and a hobbit. While I had brought Wild Men and some Spiders out, and had 20 units headed for Gondor, I really hadn't managed to do what I intended. I didn't have enough musters to recruit in Orthanc and the Ents were making moves there which made it look risky even if I did manage to muster some. I had literally rolled 2 musters in the first 2 rounds.

- Thinking they have gone too far to consider turning back to Lorien, and Gondor looking dangerous for the fellowship, I figure my best bet is to try to maximise corruption. This will either corrupt the ring-bearer, or force them to slow to a crawl and buy me some time to get military action going. But since there was nothing forcing me to move out of the fellowship's path it seemed like they would still move once per turn, and every turn they didn't was just more time for me.

- I sicked the Chief of the Ringwraiths on them, then positioned Sauron Regulars and Nazgul in W Brown Lands, E Brown Lands and W Emyn Muil. I caught them the next 2 times they moved I think, further increasing corruption (though the FP had a couple of cards which reduced it a bit).

- Things played out pretty much how I expected. They moved 1/turn until on the Mordor track. I think they had about 6-7 corruption on entering, which I knew was dangerous. They used Gollum's ability to reduce corruption as much as possible but this slowed their journey, and they still got corrupted before the final step. By this point I had 5 VP but was struggling to see how I would get the next 5 (probably DEW line as Dead Men had ravaged Orthanc and Dol Amroth had an army of about 7-8 units including 3+ elites, with 4 companions nearby). But once on the Mordor Track there is pressure to keep moving (or hiding if revealed) as they take 1 corruption for doing neither.

You're welcome to try it, but I think putting units in the way like that can only really work when the Fellowship's movement options are severely limited, and there are Shadow armies already nearby. Otherwise it's just going to cost a lot of actions, and they can choose a different route.